


A Journey to Winterfell

by NotSteve



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:10:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotSteve/pseuds/NotSteve
Summary: Brienne journeys to Winterfell, holding on to innocence.





	A Journey to Winterfell

 

“Grandfather says he’s going to catch a thousand fish for me when he goes fishing tomorrow. Only... I won’t be able to eat them because we’ll be in Winterfell by then.” Brienne could not help but smile down at her son, who sat in front of her on the horse. “He’ll have to give them to Orna and all the other children on the island, I suppose—but he’ll have caught them for me. Doesn’t matter to me, though. I like Orna and the other kids; we play fun games outside sometimes. They would’ve all gone rotten by the time we returned home anyway.”

Brienne simply hummed to acknowledge that she was listening to him. Attie was a boy who liked to have his voice heard. He had been going on like that since the start of their journey up towards Winterfell a few days ago. Sailing from Tarth, Brienne could tell he was excited to visit the north, but by the time they had reached land and mounted their horse, she noticed he was beginning to feel home sick, openly missing his grandfather and his friends.

“Do they have fish in the north, mama?” he asked. His hand found the head of her sword and his fingers danced around the lion’s mane.

“Careful,” she said gently, brushing her own rough hand on top of his smoothe one. “No, I don’t believe so,” she answered. “If they do, I don’t imagine it being any good.”

“We’ll go fishing when we return home,” he declared. “It’ll be the first thing we do.”

“We’ll see,” she said simply.

* * *

 

With one hand gripping Oathkeeper and the other one guiding her horse foreword, Brienne could not help but wonder if they were being watched. The sound of a broken twig brought her horse to an abrupt stop, and, startled, she looked around in each direction. The sun was now setting and Attie, her son, had grown tired of his own words and had started drifting off to sleep, snuggling into Brienne’s armor. She would have to find them a safe place to camp for the night.

She quickly spotted a nice little cottage in the distance. Upon discovering her pregnancy with Attie, Jaime had talked about them running away together, to raise the child free from any burdens he might inherit from their dysfunctional parents. They would live as new people with new names in a small cottage somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Of course that never happened, and would never happen, but in that moment, she saw Jaime outside by the door, waving them near. _I’ve been waiting for you two_ , he said, though only in Brienne’s head. _What happened? Did you get lost?_

Her eyes quickly adjusted to the lighting that was growing dim and she realized too late that it was not Jaime. She nodded curtly to the man, who was not Jaime—he looked nothing like him, in fact.

“Evening to you, pets.” He grinned, showing Brienne his two missing upper teeth.

“Just passing through,” she said stiffly.

“M’lady, if you plan on traveling all night, might I warn ya... There’s nasty people about.”

He looked down at Attie, who had been woken by the harshness in the man’s voice, and his smile became unsettling to her.

She wrapped a protective, armored arm around him. “I’ll manage,” she said.

“I’ve got plenty of room here.”

“Thank you, no.”

“Where are you from?”

“Tarth.” It was Attie who answered him.

“Ah,” said the man, intrigued, “the Sapphire Isles. And where are you going?”

“Don’t—"

“Winterfell,” said Attie.

“—answer that,” said Brienne, one second too late. She frowned at the man.

He, however, did not notice her discomfort, or chose to ignore it, and instead turned his attention up at the sky. For some strange reason, so did Brienne. “Nearly dark,” he said.

“We’ll manage.”

She made to turn her horse around, but before she could do so, Attie had squeezed out of her grasp and jumped down from the horse. “We can stay here tonight, then?” he said to the man.

“ _Attie_ ,” she said, following him off the horse.

“Of course,” said the man, rustling the boy’s golden locks atop his head.

“Don’t... touch him,” said Brienne, grasping Oathkeeper tightly.

The man frowned. “Why don’t you head on inside, pet, while your mother and I get… acquainted.”

“ _Attie, stay here_ ,” said Brienne.

“It’s all right,” he assured her, running inside.

She quickly ran after him, but the man stopped her from entering the cottage.

* * *

 

The cottage, though cozy, was small. Attie could not imagine living in such a tight space; he liked to have a big enough space so he could run around and play while his mother cleaned and polished Oathkeeper. It was also too far away from the ocean, and Attie enjoyed fishing too much to stay away from it. There was a warm fire in one corner of the room where a pot sat boiling above it. He was about to investigate what had been cooking in the pot when he heard his mother grunt from outside. Startled, because she only ever grunted like that when she was fighting, he ran outside to investigate.

Outside, his mother held Oathkeeper in her hand, blood on its blade. “YOU DO NOT DO THAT,” she said when she caught sight of him. “YOU STAY HERE WITH ME! WHERE I CAN PROTECT YOU!”

Her face was a deep shade of red, but not the red she got when she was embarrassed, and her blue eyes were burning a fierce fire, like the one inside. Attie looked down at the man, who was now only a bleeding corpse. “You... you killed him,” he said softly.

Her expression changed, realization suddenly hitting her as she looked from her son to the corpse on the ground. “Get inside,” she ordered softly. “I’ll… I’ll deal with—”

Attie ran inside quickly before she could finish. She cursed under her breath as she heard another twig break in the far distance. She gripped Oathkeeper tighter but relaxed once she discovered it had only been a small animal making the noise.

 _This was bound to happen eventually, Brienne_ , said Jaime, who was now standing by the dead man’s feet.

“Yes, when he’s older,” said Brienne, frustrated, “and has a better understanding of… of what the world is really like.”

_He’s seen death before._

“He doesn’t remember that,” she said simply. He frowned at her; _he doesn’t remember you_ is what they both knew she meant.

She alone entered the small cottage where she had instructed Attie to remain while she disposed of the body. He was on the floor next to the warm fire with his back turned from Brienne, and his head resting on his forearm. By his heavy breathing, she could tell he was crying. She quickly removed her armor and gathered him into her arms.

“I didn’t mean for you to see that,” she said in a whisper, “but—"

He turned to her then, his eyes red and glossed over. “Why did you do it?” he said with a sniff as she soothingly wiped the tears from his cheeks away with her fingers.

She pulled him in closer, rocking him back and forth. “I didn’t mean for you to see that,” she repeated.

* * *

 

The next morning while Brienne fed the horse, Attie examined the blood-stained ground where the man had died. It was sprinkling out, but the clouds above told Brienne that not much rain would fall during their ride north.

“Will the blood come out in the rain?” he asked. He was pretending to be fine with it now, but Brienne could tell he was still bothered.

“Probably,” she said, mounting on the horse. She motioned for him to come near her so she could pull him up.

Last night, Brienne could not find an appropriate moment to explain to him why she had killed the man, for both were too preoccupied with his weeping. By the time he had stopped crying, it was late and they both needed to get some sleep.

“Attie,” she said, “if you have any questions—”

Attie said nothing. And he remained silent until they reached a small bridge. Instantly, it brought her back to one of her first moments with Jaime. She blinked and saw him waving at her on the bridge, dressed like a prisoner being led back to King’s Landing.

 _Brienne_ , he said, _remember when you knocked me to the ground that one time? I suppose it’s been more than once, hasn’t it? Our first time, then. Brienne, remember the first time you knocked me to the ground? You made a real man out of me, darling Brienne._

“Before you buried the body”—she had told him earlier that day she had buried his body— “did you check to see if he was really dead, mama?”

She blinked again and the image of Jaime was gone. She quickly crossed the bridge. “Yes.”

“And was he?”

“Yes.”

He fell silent again.

“Would you like to know why I killed him?” she said finally. They were now close to Winterfell, only a few hours left until they were to arrive.

“Not yet,” he said softly.

* * *

 

“I have to pee,” he said, startling both Brienne and the horse as he suddenly jumped down onto the ground. He examined each tree carefully, and then finally settling on the one nearest to him after his mother told him to hurry.

 “Don’t look,” he said with his back turned to her.

She turned her head slightly but kept a careful eye on him. Quietly, he peed and patiently Brienne waited. When he had finished, she had expected him to hop back up onto the horse, but he remained frozen by the tree.

“Why _did_ you kill him?”

“To protect you—to protect us,” she said.

“But why did he have to die?” he asked as she pulled him back up back onto the horse.

She hesitated. “Attie, he—he told me... _things_ ,” she said.

He turned to her. “What kind of things?”

“Nasty things.” She pulled out a knife she had on her—a knife that Attie did not recognize. “He had this with him. He threatened me... Told me—” She could not repeat the words the man had said to her, not to her son. She did not want to explain rape and torture to her innocent little boy. Not now, at least. She bowed her head. “He said he would kill you.”

* * *

 

“Why?”

The northern air was different from the Tarth air. This air made Attie shiver slightly, whereas the air in Tarth served as a nice breeze, cooling him off from the hot sun. In Winterfell the sun hardly ever came out. They were to arrive at Winterfell in only a few hours.

“Why what?”

“Why did the man want to kill me?”

“Some people are like that,” she said.

“Not you, though?”

She frowned, not knowing the answer. “Not you,” she echoed back to him.

Her mind suddenly went to Jaime, as it does so many times of the day. He was a regular man, neither devil nor saint; he killed when he needed to, regretted some of them.

“Attie,” she said, “you—we never seem to talk about your father.”

“Only because I never know what to say about him.”

* * *

 

Their journey remained practically silent the rest of the way there. They had stopped just outside of Winterfell for a quick break to tidy up before they were to be presented to the Lady of Winterfell.

“What was it like when he died?” he asked as Brienne lifted him back onto the horse.

“Quick,” assured Brienne. “I didn’t think he should suffer.” _Unlike what he would have done to us_ , thought Brienne.

Attie turned to her, a startled expression on his face. “You killed _him_ too?”

“Wha—who’re you talking about?”

He turned away quickly, his face a deep shade of red. Jaime stood at the entrance waving them in, and suddenly Brienne understood. She paused for a long moment before answering: “Hard,” she said. “Losing him was really hard.”

**Author's Note:**

> I gotta get my fan theories written and posted before the show ruins it for me. Obvs I want jaime and brienne to survive and live the rest of their days in tarth, but anything can happen.


End file.
